


More Than I Am

by jazzjo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Parent-Teacher Conference AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-02 19:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8681308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzjo/pseuds/jazzjo
Summary: Alex Danvers had headed to Jamie Sawyer's home with half a mind to rip her mother – who, by the way, had missed every parent-teacher conference in the past two years – a new one. What changed?





	1. Chapter 1

Alex scrubbed the board down, chalk dust rising in plumes as the buildup of all the traces of her lessons throughout the day were cleaned away. School had let out early that day, leaving the second half of the usual school day, as well as the rest of the afternoon and evening, for parent teacher conferences.

 

For the most part, the kids in her class were alright. They were between seven and eight, and honestly couldn’t be all that creative in the trouble they got into or caused. Alex was teaching far below the grade level she could be, but there was something about getting children this young excited about learning that made Alex grin.

 

And Alex, as a person, didn’t grin all that much. 

 

She pinned up the roster of parents meeting her on her classroom door, setting up chairs built for children in rows in front of her desk for the parents to wait in. There were twenty children in her class, and she was expecting as many sets of parents. 

 

Well, “expecting” was a strong word; there always was one set – or one parent, rather – who never turned up. Not in the two years Alex had been teaching this group of students. To be perfectly honest, Alex was beginning to get worried. For starters, Jamie was one of the few students in her class who had actual problems that needed to be dealt with, and Alex _really_ needed to speak to her mother. 

 

Sparing her phone one last glance – two messages from Kara, reminding her about dinner on Tuesday, and another request from her mother to rethink National City Medical’s offer – Alex turned the device off and set it off to the side of her desk. 

 

She had fifteen minutes before the first set of parents would walk in. Pulling a thick ring binder out of her desk drawer, Alex flipped through the dividers to check that every student’s profile and checklist were inside, along with other relevant documents or writeups. Stopping on the last tab in the file, Alex ran her index finger along her student’s name written in dark blue sharpie and reread the “dossier” she had compiled on Jamie. Her mother, a cop with the NCPD, no other parent to speak of. No other family, for that matter. 

 

At least, none that Jamie had mentioned. She was a quiet kid. Bright, quick to answer if called upon, but quiet nonetheless. Alex knew she hadn’t always been that way – at the beginning of first grade Jamie had been far more exuberant than she was now, but Alex had seen that fade away before her eyes. 

 

Some of it must have been what was happening at school, but without getting in touch with Jamie’s mother, she could hardly fully understand nor address the issue. 

 

_This_ , Alex allowed herself to contemplate for a second, _this was what she wished her mother understood; that she could help others on a daily basis even if it wasn’t in the way her mother had planned for her_. 

 

Shaking herself out of her reverie, Alex shut the binder and rose to refill her mug – black tea, not coffee; she had a long day ahead of her and the last thing she needed was a caffeine crash. She returned to her seat just as Shivani Anand’s parents strode into her classroom. 

 

Gesturing to the chairs – adult-sized, now – placed in front of her desk, Alex greeted them as they all took their seats. 

 

Shivani was a good kid – well-behaved and excitable with a flair for English and Science – but she had trouble with penmanship and waiting her turn to speak, and Alex told her parents as much. They conversed over Alex’s notes on her for the better part of fifteen minutes before her parents rose and thanked Alex for her time, leaving the classroom.

 

Eighteen other sets of parents came and left, a couple of them indignant over some comment or other that Alex had made about their child, while others bemoaned the lack of finesse in Alex’s teaching that was holding their children back. Thankfully, the last appointment with Sebastian Lewin’s fathers ended pleasantly and Alex found herself less exhausted than she had originally expected to be. 

 

Which, still, was quite exhausted, going by the crick in her neck and the phantom hoarseness in her throat. 

 

And Jamie’s mother still hadn’t shown up. 

 

Rubbing one hand over her face, Alex flipped back to the section in her binder on Jamie and scanned the page until she spotted the home address Jamie had been registered with, two blocks away from both the school and Alex’s own apartment, not in the best of parts of town. 

 

A house call it would have to be. 

 

If there was anything Alex hated more than parent teacher conferences it was having to meet parents outside of those dedicated times. She was perfectly comfortable interacting with children, but anyone above the age of twenty five was fair game for Alex’s sheer lack of social skills. 

 

Putting her belongings back into her messenger bag, Alex pulled on her leather jacket and grabbed her helmet from under her desk. She nodded to the teachers along her hallway on her way to the staff parking lot, swung herself onto her Ducati and drove along the streets of National City that she had come to know better than she knew Midvale at this point, parking her bike in the alley between two stock buildings. 

 

Alex stowed her helmet and adjusted the strap of her messenger bag before striding up the front steps to the apartment building on her right and pressing the buzzer labeled “Sawyer”. Combing her hands through her hair, Alex steeled herself for resistance or reticence, nearly falling backwards off the stairs when a voice came over the intercom, crackling and unclear. 

 

“Sawyer, who’s this?” A voice spoke evenly.

 

“Ms. Sawyer, my name is Alex Danvers,” Alex attempted, “I’m Jamie’s teacher. May I come up?”

 

“Third floor, second apartment on your left,” Came the reply, the intercom sharply cutting off. 

 

Alex pulled the door open once a buzzer sounded, walking up the stairs as her nails found their way to the palms of her hands and formed the all-too-familiar crescents. She stopped in front of apartment 3C, raising her clenched fist to knock, hesitating just as the door was wrenched open to reveal Jamie in an oversized NCPD t-shirt and basketball shorts. 

 

“Hi Ms. Alex!” Jamie greeted, grinning up at her teacher. 

 

A throaty chuckle came from further inside the apartment, then the same voice as before, _sans_ static, “Let Ms. Danvers in, _mija_. Don’t leave her standing outside the door.”

 

Jamie stepped aside with a quick jump, shutting the door behind Alex as she stepped in gingerly. 

 

“Alex Danvers,” She introduced again, offering her hand as she stepped towards the woman in the kitchen, “Jamie’s teacher.”

 

“Maggie Sawyer, Jamie’s mother,” Maggie retorted lightly, setting the mug and spoon she had been holding onto the counter and gesturing for Jamie to take it, “I’m assuming this is about the parent teacher conference today?”

 

“Well, yes,” Alex began, her voice fading momentarily as she met Maggie’s eyes, “Today’s, and all those in the past two years.”

 

“Jamie tends to tell me after the fact, don’t you, _mija_?” Maggie turns to her daughter, who peers over the top of her mug with sheepish eyes, “She doesn’t want me to clock out of work early too much. This way we save my few days off for when she’s sick.”

 

Jamie spoke around her milk moustache, speckles of cinnamon darkening the white imprint, “I tell Mama everything, Ms. Alex. She doesn’t need to go.”

 

“Be that as it may, Ms. Sawyer–”

 

“Maggie,” She interjected, “You see more of Jamie than I do most days. I think you can call me Maggie.”

 

“Maggie, then,” Alex restarted, “There have been certain issues, if you will, that Jamie has been facing in school that I think would benefit from some discussion.”

 

Gesturing for Alex to take a seat next to Jamie at the counter, Maggie nods, “The bullying, you mean?”

 

Alex looks up from pulling her binder out of her bag and meets Maggie’s gaze, eyes wide, “You knew?”

 

Maggie smirked, lifting Jamie easily off her stool and swiping away the milk moustache with her thumb before reminding her to brush her teeth and turning back to Alex, “Jamie did say that she tells me everything. We’ve spoken about it at length. It’s nothing unexpected, really, and I do trust that you’ve been trying to combat it on your end. Kids can be cruel. Will be cruel. All I can do is help Jamie learn how to deal with it.”

 

“Is she, though?” Alex probed, setting her binder on the counter.

 

“Excuse me?” Maggie’s voice took on an edge as she angled herself to fully face Alex for the first time in the conversation.

 

Thumbing her way to Jamie’s section of the binder, Alex elaborated, “She has been getting progressively more shy and withdrawn over the past year. Unless there have been other factors at play, I’m not entirely sure she’s been dealing with it, as you say.”

 

Pushing herself away from the counter, Maggie strode towards the mantle in the living room and picked up a photograph frame. 

 

Walking back to where Alex was seated, Maggie put the frame down on the counter, turning the picture to face Alex.

 

“Her grandmother passed away in September,” Maggie stated plainly, “We weren’t… close, but Jamie hadn’t really had to grapple with death until then.”

 

Sensing Maggie hadn’t finished her explanation, Alex waited, holding Maggie’s gaze.

 

“A long term relationship I was in also ended in October,” Maggie continued, “She and Jamie were pretty close. I had thought– Jamie took that pretty hard.”

 

_She?_

 

“Jamie’s grades are good, great even. She still participates in class when I call on her, and she’s never acted out in class,” Alex reassured, stopping short as she reached out momentarily to cover Maggie’s fidgeting hand with hers, “I was concerned if the bullies were getting to her more than she was letting on.”

 

Maggie tilted her head as she regarded Alex, her next words losing the edge that had threatened every sentence she had uttered thus far, “You actually care.”

 

“Of course!” Alex exclaimed, taken aback, “I spend just about every day of my life with these children. If I didn’t care I’d probably have gone clinical insane months ago. Plus, she’s a sweet kid. Reminds me of my little sister.”

 

“Not many teachers who cared about the non-straight, non-white kid in Blue Springs, Nebraska,” Maggie shrugged, “I’m glad she has better.”

 

“I’m not going to lie,” Alex ventured, biting her lip before continuing, “I came here with every intention of interrogating you over why you couldn’t be bothered to turn up.”

 

Maggie laughed, a loud, free sound that had her ribs vibrating, “I’m usually doing just that, Danvers. Interrogating. Plus, I’ve heard that she has a certain leather jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding teacher watching her back even during recess, so I know she’s safe.”

 

Alex, believe it or not, _blushes_ , tugging her jacket more snugly around her. 

 

“Thank you, really, for watching out for her,” Maggie smiles, dimples adorning her cheeks that mirror Jamie’s, “You’re kind of her hero.”

 

“Mama!” A sharp voice yells from beyond the corridor.

 

“You’re definitely her hero,” Maggie repeated, louder this time. 

 

Both women laughed at the guttural groan that emanated from what must have been Jamie’s bedroom, Alex’s eyes unwittingly drawn to the asymmetry of Maggie’s grin and the way her eyebrows framed her face as she raised them in amusement. 

 

“We’ve met before this,” Maggie revealed, untucking her grey v-neck from her slacks.

 

“Hmm?” 

 

Lifting her t-shirt up slightly, Maggie revealed a jagged scar that traced a line from her hipbone to the bottom of her ribcage, punctuated by a rounded patch.

 

“National City Hospital, 2011. An overly prepared bank robber stabbed _and_ shot me. You’re the one who operated on me, or so I’m told,” Maggie revealed as she tucked her shirt back in, “Alexandra Danvers, right?”

 

“My hands shook for two whole hours after your surgery. It was that terrifying,” Alex admitted, running a hand through her hair, “I’m glad I could help, really. My attending told me you had a two year old waiting on you outside who would be an orphan if I failed.”

 

Alex rose from the stool, closing the binder and sliding it back into her bag. 

 

“Well, I’ve put you out for long enough. My apologies for the intrusion,” Alex slung the bag around her torso tightly, “I’m glad we got to clear up the matter of Jamie’s situation. If it would make it easier, you don’t have to be restricted to scheduled conference timings. If and when you have the chance, you can always call the office to set up an appointment with me to talk about Jamie.”

 

As Alex moved to leave, Maggie stopped her with a hand on her forearm, a card between her fingers.

 

“This has my cell number on it. If there are important things you need to inform me about or discuss with me, you’d have better luck contacting me directly, especially if I’m at work or on call,” Maggie withdrew her hand once Alex takes the card, “I don’t want to be unreachable. It’s just a quirk of the job.”

 

Alex nodded, the absence of a hand on her arm burning clear as day as she exits the apartment and Maggie shut the door behind her. 


	2. Chapter 2

Alex looked up from the worksheets on her desk, her eyes meeting the sight of a slouching Jamie dragging her feet (and satchel) across the classroom floor. 

 

“Jamie?” Alex asked gently, “Hasn’t your mother been here to pick you up yet? School ended half an hour ago.”

 

The girl shrugged, the stillness of her schooled expression broken by the firm bite her front teeth had on her bottom lip, dropping herself heavily into her usual seat, “She’s probably still at work. Can I stay here till she comes?”

 

Opening her desk drawer, Alex pulled out a slim book and strode over to Jamie. She set the novel down on Jamie’s table with a soft hand on Jamie’s back and held the child’s small frame to her side for a brief moment. 

 

“I’ll call your mother and ask her where she is. I’m sure she’s just fine,” Alex assured, taking her cellphone out of her back pocket, “That’s _The Island of Doctor Moreau_ by H.G. Wells, it’s a little dark but your mother did mention you liked science fiction, and it was one of my favourite books as a kid. There will be fifth and sixth graders coming in for the science club meeting in fifteen minutes, but you’re welcome to read or whatever in here if you want to.”

 

Jamie’s face brightened slightly at the sight of the well-worn book before her, picking it up and beginning to thumb through the pages as Alex stepped out of her classroom to call Maggie. 

 

Scrolling through the sparse number of contacts on her phone – the only people outside what was left of her immediate family who were in her contact list were colleagues, really – it took Alex just a moment to track down Maggie Sawyer’s number. Alex inhaled shakily as she clicked on the number, equal parts nervous about speaking to Maggie and worried that the detective would not pick up. 

 

The line rang tinnily, open-ended and only exacerbating the churning, biting feeling Alex felt in her gut. She rang twice more, to the same end. Firing off a text – sent with shaking hands, a couple of misspellings belying the quivering – Alex assured Maggie that Jamie would be watched over until Maggie could pick her up. 

 

Alex returned to the classroom, the shaking quelled and her face set once more.

 

“She’s stuck on a stakeout,” Alex tried to keep her voice light and level as her fingers tightened around her phone behind her back, “She says she’s really sorry she was late, but she’ll come pick you up once she’s done.”

 

“Mama’s safe then, Ms. Alex?” Jamie looked up at Alex, peering at her with eyes glossed over with a thin sheen of moisture. 

 

Nodding minutely, Alex returned to her chair and finished marking the rest of the worksheets that lay on her table in a neat stack. The fifth and sixth graders from the science club began to stream in as she put aside the now graded assignments, clearing her desk and laying down a plastic sheet to set up her experiment demonstration for the day. 

 

As Alex checked in with the group of students who had now settled in chairs slightly small for their eleven and twelve year old frames, she listened to their rambling about their days in the comfort of this small classroom. 

 

Many of these students, after all, were not entirely comfortable in their own classrooms. 

 

“Today, we’re going to make elephant toothpaste,” Alex declared, relishing the curious muttering that immediately washed through her classroom. 

 

They sat on the edges of their seats as she handed out safety goggles and instructed the them to lean back in their chairs – which they did, reluctantly. She asked for a volunteer to assist her in tipping the small beaker of hydrogen peroxide solution into the large conical flask on her desk, prepared for the bickering mess that usually took over the otherwise civilised classroom whenever the students were faced with the prospect of a special hands-on experiment, only for the entire classroom to turn to Jamie who sat, index finger marking her place about a quarter ways through the novel in her hands, rapt withal. 

 

Alex grinned at her young charges, holding a pair of latex gloves out to the stunned girl as she beckoned her forward. 

 

Jamie snapped on the latex gloves gleefully, grasping the beaker between three fingers as Alex placed her on a spare chair a safe enough distance away from the set-up and guided her hand in reaching out and pouring the peroxide into the flask. 

 

As a jet of green coloured foam shot out of the flask, gasps of wonderment erupted among the students as Alex called them forward. 

 

“You can touch it if you want – it’s just soap, at this point. But if you notice,” Alex pointed the the rapidly dissipating steam emanating from the foam, “It’s warm. That was a chemical reaction that releases heat, and happens really quickly because the peroxide acts as a catalyst – a chemical that speeds up a slow reaction – and releases oxygen in the process, thus forming bubbles in the soap that gives you this foam.”

 

Alex allowed the students to play with the riveting foam for a while longer, answering their questions as they exuberantly shot them at her, before herding them towards the washrooms and making them wash their hands of soap and food colouring. 

 

As they did so, Alex cleared any traces of the experiment from her desk and classroom and pulled her cell out of her pocket, turning it on.

 

Still nothing.

 

* * *

 

_To: Maggie Sawyer_

 

_I’m going to bring Jamie’s back to mine, I hope you don’t mind. It’s getting pretty late and I really hope you’re alright. Pick her up when you can; I’ll watch her until then. Please let me know you’re okay.– A. Danvers_

 

* * *

 

 

Alex sent the message just as Jamie skipped back into the classroom in front of the herd of students. Sending the rest of her students off with the prospect of a space-themed session next week, she waited until everyone had left before going to crouch beside Jamie. 

 

“Do you want to come back to my apartment and wait until your mother’s done with her stakeout?” Alex offered.

 

Jamie regarded Alex with the same tilted gaze that Maggie had levelled her with the day she had gone to their apartment, nodding silently as she picked up her satchel and the book. 

 

“Let me let your mother know, alright?” Alex unlocked her phone once more and shouldered her messenger bag as she walked Jamie towards the main gates of the school.

 

* * *

 

 

_To: Maggie Sawyer_

 

_Just so you know, we’re going to take the bus. Don’t worry, I won’t be putting your kid on a motorcycle. – A. Danvers_

 

* * *

 

She relayed her address before swiping out of her chat with Maggie, Alex clicked on her sister’s contact and typed out another message. 

 

* * *

 

 

_To: Kara Danvers_

 

_Sorry for the last minute cancellation, but something cropped up at school and I can’t make sister night today. I’ll make it up to you, I swear._

 

* * *

 

Her phone buzzed almost immediately with Kara’s reply – a string of annoyed emojis followed by a completely unsubtle demand for potstickers as reparation. 

 

Jamie read on their entire bus ride back, bombarding Alex with a million questions about the plot as they made the walk from the bus stop to Alex’s apartment, half of which Alex deflected with a simple, cryptic, “ _spoilers_ ”, much to Jamie’s chagrin. 

 

Alex helped Jamie onto a barstool at the kitchen counter once they entered the apartment, before offering her some apple juice – Kara’s, she swore. 

 

“Do you want to do your homework now?” Alex interrupted Jamie before she could reopen the novel, “This way you’ll be free to spend time with your mom once she’s done with work.”

 

“But–”

 

“I know you have homework,” Alex chuckled, “I assigned it, after all. The book will still be there when you’re done.”

 

Jamie bit her lip, taking the offered slip of paper from Alex’s hand and slipping it between the pages she was on to mark her place.

 

“I don’t have to give it back immediately?” Her voice was quiet, tentative.

 

Alex grinned at Jamie, an easy smile that seemed to be making more appearances around Jamie(and Maggie) than anyone else, “You see me five out of six days a week, most weeks of the year. You can always give it back when you’re done. No rush, Jamie.”

 

“But it’s a special book, isn’t it?” Jamie picked up the book again and flipped open the front cover, pointing to a handwritten note, “Your father gave it to you.”

 

“He did,” Alex’s voice was soft, her eyes gentle as she ran her index finger over her father’s familiar scrawl, “On my tenth birthday. He was a scientist, and he knew I loved to read. I sat up in bed all night to read it all the way through, and I fell asleep in class the next day. I think he’d be happy if he knew I was sharing the story, don't you?”

 

“I’ll take good care of it, Ms. Alex,” Jamie assured, shutting the book and setting it aside reverently, “It’s a really good book.”

 

Jamie took out her pencil case and folder, withdrawing the worksheets that had been assigned –  _by Alex_  – that day. As Jamie started on her homework, Alex glanced at the watch face on the inside of her right wrist before checking her phone again for messages. 

 

“When do you usually have dinner, Jamie?” Alex swept the hair out of her eyes as she asked.

 

Shrugging, Jamie scratched out a series of numbers with her pencil before answering, “Six? It usually depends on how much work Mama brings home. Can you help me with this question, Ms. Alex?”

 

Alex walked over to the other side of the counter and sat on the stool next to Jamie’s, letting her hair fall to cover the side of her face as she bends to look at the problem in question. 

 

“Remember how I taught the class how carrying the one works? If you bring a number from the ones place to the tens place it becomes that first number, times ten.” Alex explained, demonstrating the concept with a sample problem next to the actual question she was consulted on, “Try that method with the numbers in the question and see if you get the right answer.”

 

At Jamie’s nod, Alex rose and left her to puzzle over the question on her own, opening the fridge and putting together the elements of a simple stir-fry. The least she could do was make sure Jamie was fed before Maggie finally returned; she was pretty sure radio silence meant something dangerous had happened. 

 

As Alex chopped vegetables, she answered the odd question from Jamie, or explained a poorly grasped concept, joking when she began to cook the ingredients in a small wok,”If any of your classmates ask about these things tomorrow, I’d expect you would be able to explain it to them even better than I can.”

 

Alex placed a bowl of stir-fry in front of Jamie, together with a mug of water, as the girl put away her now completed homework. Setting aside a bowl – covered and placed in an oven set on its lowest temperature to keep warm – for Maggie, if she wanted it, Alex took her own and sat next to Jamie. 

 

“Do you think Mama’s alright, Ms. Alex?” Jamie looked down and stared into the food in front of her, two tears unwittingly falling into her bowl, “The last time she was gone this long, she got hurt.”

 

Alex turned to face Jamie, tipping Jamie’s face towards her with a finger under her chin and wiping the tears that had begun to track down Jamie’s cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. Jamie lurched forward, burying her face in Alex’s shirt as she wrapped her arms tightly around her neck, soft sobs shaking her small frame. 

 

“I’m sure she’ll be here for you as soon as she possibly can,” Alex struggled to keep her voice steady and winced at her own attempts at comforting Jamie, “If anything happens to her you’ll hear about it. In the mean time there’s no point in thinking the worst.”

 

Alex ran her fingers through Jamie’s curls as she let the girl cry into her shirt, untangling locks of hair gently while her other hand rubbed slow circles on her back. 

 

As Jamie’s gasps slowed back into sobs, then into hitched breaths, Alex guided the mug of water to her lips and instructed her to take slow, small sips. Rising from her chair, Alex ducked into her room to get a washcloth, wetting it in the sink before gently cleaning Jamie’s face of tear tracks. 

 

“Eat a little, if you can,” Alex spoke gently as she pushed the bowl closer to Jamie, “I’m going to call the station to check on your mom, okay?”

 

Jamie nodded shakily, picking up the fork next to her bowl and taking small bites of the food in front of her that was thankfully still somewhat warm. Alex, on the other hand, shovelled her food into her mouth as she rang Maggie’s precinct and waited to be transferred from the main switchboard to someone who could actually tell her what was going on. 

 

If not for the fact that a still slightly gasping Jamie was seated next to her, Alex would have cursed, or thrown her phone against the wall. 

 

She couldn’t even claim that the pit in her stomach was just a result of her worry for Jamie. There was an unmistakable weight in her gut that would not be appeased until she knew Maggie was safe. And yet, no one would tell her anything.

 

After all, she wasn’t of any relation to Maggie. Try as she might to explain the situation to the officer on the line, they held fast that there was no way they would be permitted to disclose Maggie’s whereabouts or status to Alex. Alex nodded to Jamie before excusing herself out of earshot.

 

Running a hand through her hair, Alex sighed resignedly, “If you can, please, tell Maggie to call Alex Danvers when she gets back. If anything untoward happens, please call this number. Her daughter is worried about her.”

 

“I’ll do what I can, Miss Danvers,” With that, the call ended with a loud click. 

 

Alex tried her best to distract Jamie. Distract them both, really. She sat on the floor in front of Jamie’s perch on the couch, _The Island of Doctor Moreau_ in hand as she read aloud from the book. Occasionally Jamie would interrupt to ask a question, or to make a comment about the particular plot point that transpired, though she was far more restrained than she had been on their way back from the bus stop. 

 

Eventually, Jamie tired and nodded off slightly, her head bumping into the back of Alex’s. Scooping the child up from the couch, Alex placed her on her bed, assuring her that she would let her know the moment she heard anything regarding Maggie. 

 

“I’ll be right outside if you need anything, Jamie,” Alex murmured as she dimmed the lights, “Just yell if you need anything. Get some rest before your mom comes to get you.”

 

With Alex’s only distraction otherwise indisposed, Alex paced – quietly, her footsteps silent on the hardwood floor – the length of her apartment. Her eyes were drawn to her phone every two laps or so, to no avail. 

 

Alex’s mind began to drift, familiar enough with the violence that could occur in National City to be able to conjure worst case scenarios that left her chilled to the bone and allowed the quivering in her hands to return with a vengeance. Just as she was about to call Kara and beg her to head down to the precinct and use some of Lena’s leverage to try to weasel some information out of anyone, her phone vibrated in her pocket. 

 

* * *

 

 

_From: Maggie Sawyer_

 

_Open your door_.

 

* * *

 

 

Alex released a breath she was not aware she had been holding. She made quick work of the short distance between her and the front door, pulling it open as quickly but quietly as possible to reveal Maggie slumped against the door frame, a hand over a rapidly darkening patch on her grey shirt. 

 

“Jesus, Maggie, what happened?” Alex gasped, helping Maggie onto her couch.

 

Maggie shook her head and spoke through a clenched jaw, “Got jumped on a stakeout. Had to wait hours for backup. Feel up to patching me up again?”

 

Alex rolled her eyes, ducking into her bathroom for her admittedly extensive first aid kit. Examining the gash that was revealed once Maggie lifted her shirt (coupled with an _extremely_ inappropriate eyebrow raise, given the circumstances) Alex cleaned the area with a disinfectant wipe and applied an antiseptic gel as Maggie hissed and dug her short nails into Alex’s upper arm. 

 

“You won’t need stitches; these butterfly closures should do,” Alex spoke quietly as she dressed the wound, “But if it starts bleeding again or it gets infected you should go see a real doctor. I have these supplies under my desk in school so if you can’t change the dressing yourself I can help you do so when you pick Jamie up.”

 

“Speaking of Jamie–”

 

“She was terrified,” Alex sighed, rubbing a hand over her face, “She did her homework, cried, and had dinner. We read for a while before she dozed off. She’s in my room sleeping. We saved some stir-fry for you, if you want it.”

 

Maggie gazed up at Alex softly, her head tilted as she smiled. 

 

“Thank you,” She murmured, “You didn’t have to do that.”

 

Alex just shrugged, moving to the kitchen to grab Maggie’s bowl and setting it on the coffee table as she helped Maggie sit up against the couch cushions gingerly. 

 

Maggie chuckled as she ate, grinning at Alex before she said, “You didn’t strike me as the type to know how to cook, Danvers.”

 

“Ungratefulness doesn’t become you, Sawyer,” Alex shot back, a smile of relief on her face, “I’m going to let Jamie know you’re safe.”

 

“Let her sleep,” Maggie stopped Alex from getting up with a (thankfully warm) hand on her forearm, “Just a while longer. I don't want her to see me until the pain fades a little.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bout of writers' block, my apologies. The holidays are a fan-feckin-tastic time for me in general and this year is giving me lots to think about, so I've been grappling with my thoughts over empty pages rather than actually writing.
> 
> EDIT (13th December): I've added in the bit I accidentally deleted, so I hope it doesn't feel like quite such a jump from the previous chapter. Things are moving a little fast, but I guess that's how Sanvers is being played and I for one am loathe to drag things out.

The text came in a week to the day after The Incident, as Maggie had taken to calling it in her head. A simple, innocuous text among many others they had been exchanging. 

 

_From: Alex Danvers_

 

_What are you and Jamie doing for Thanksgiving? – A. Danvers_

 

Maggie juggled her phone listlessly between both her hands – she’d been avoiding the message the entire day, the blue notification next to their chat driving her virtually insane. Finally being forced to still the motion to free up a hand and unlock the apartment door, Maggie toed off her shoes and kicked them under the rack next to the door.

 

They were friends, Maggie was certain of that much. Between the frequent text messages and the sheer ease of talking to Alex, somewhere between the first day Maggie had opened her door to an irate Alex Danvers and The Incident, they had become friends. Sure, she still signed off on each text like there was somehow a universe in which Maggie hadn't yet saved her number, but that was more of a running gag after Maggie pointed out the absurdity of the action, rather than a necessity. In the past week, though, Maggie had gotten a distinct feeling of them teetering on the edge of something more. 

 

Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

 

As she walked further into the apartment, practiced hands unclipped her NCPD badge and gun from her waistband, disassembling the gun from its full clip and stowing everything in the safe as she gradually shed _Detective Sawyer_ to become _Maggie_. 

 

Helena  – t he godsend that was Jamie’s babysitter on days like these when Maggie worked well past Jamie’s bedtime – crept out of Jamie’s room, shutting the door with an almost imperceptible click. 

 

“Thank you, Helena,” Maggie sighed, reaching into her back pocket for her wallet, “I’m so sorry for keeping you late.”

 

The nineteen year old grinned as she pocketed the bills handed to her, shrugging easily, “Jamie’s easy to watch, Mags, don’t sweat it. She’d rather sit with me over readings than run amok, which isa step up from my own little siblings.”

 

Reaching up, Maggie ruffled Helena’s pixie cut as the girl padded past her in her Darth Vader socks. 

 

“Text me when you get home, alright? It’s pretty late,” Maggie reminded.

 

Helena rolled her eyes, quipping, “You’re such a cop, and such a _mom._ ”

 

“Go home, Hel.”

 

“Answer your phone, Mags,” Helena threw over her shoulder as she walked out of the apartment. 

 

Maggie’s eyes widened, her eyebrows furrowing as she glanced down at the offending device in her hand.

 

It was, in fact, vibrating. 

 

_Incoming call: Alex Danvers_

 

Fuck. 

 

If someone had been watching, Maggie would have been hard pressed to explain the sheer extent of fumbling that happened between her noticing the incoming call and the moment she actually managed to pull herself together to accept the call. 

 

“Sawyer,” Maggie attempted her best rendition of calm and collected, her hand sweating as she held the phone to her ear.

 

“Grey-ticking doesn’t become you, Sawyer.”

 

“Some of us have work hours beyond the last bell, Danvers,” Maggie rallied back, a grin breaking out over her face as her fingers ran over the faintly raised sliver of skin that remained of The Incident. 

 

Alex laughed over the phone, a dry, throaty chuckle before her voice replaced it, “Thanksgiving, Sawyer. Stop distracting me.”

 

“Oh yes, Miss Danvers,” Maggie allowed her voice to lilt just so as she savoured the pause between her words, “I’m well aware just how _distracting_ you find me.”

 

“Shut up, Maggie,” Maggie could practically hear the blush that burned from Alex’s cheeks down to her collarbones, “Do you and Jamie want to come over for Thanksgiving?”

 

Maggie bit her lip, her free hand bunching her V neck absentmindedly. 

 

She had assumed, by force of habit, she supposed, that she would be spending Thanksgiving alone with Jamie as usual. It wasn’t as if she really had family left. None that wanted anything to do with her, anyway, for her status as either a queer person or as a single mother. They usually had a special dinner of their own, more elaborate, time-consuming dishes of Maggie’s own childhood she usually had neither time nor energy to make. It felt… _warm_ , to be wanted somewhere. 

 

“I mean, it’s just a dinner. Kara’s inviting a friend and I just thought it’d be nice to have more people around for Thanksgiving. And I’ve patched you up twice so I kinda thought it be good to hang out outside of the capacity of medical attention. I mean, I kinda got the impression you aren’t the closest with your family and no one should be alone for the holidays. Not that you would be alone, I mean, with Jamie and all. I’m just going to stop talking now–” Alex’s voice came crackling back over the line, startling Maggie out of her reverie.

 

“Now who’s the flustered one, huh, Danvers?” Maggie joked lightly, “Just tell us where and when. I’ll wrangle the hellion and be there.”

 

“We both know that, between the two of you, you’re the one who needs wrangling, not Jamie.”

 

“Shut up, Danvers,” Maggie quipped, before softening her voice as she remarked, “Thank you, Alex.”

 

“I’ll see you,” Alex replied quietly, before a long tone signalled the end of the phone call. 

 

* * *

 

 

Alex shuffled around the kitchen in her apartment, hands itching for a drink in anticipation for the inevitable stress-fest that every family holiday usually devolved into. She had prepared her parts of the meal, leaving dessert – chocolate pecan pie, certainly – and the turkey in the hands of her very capable mother. 

 

Even if not for the fact that she was two years sober, she certainly would not drink around Jamie. 

 

Clenching her fists, Alex breathed sharply through her nose as she tried to school her emotions. Thankfully, there would be a sort of buffer between her mother’s disapproval and her all-too-fragile feelings, what with both the Sawyers and Kara’s guest being present. 

 

Eliza and Kara were due to arrive in an hour, the turkey being cooked in Kara’s rarely-used oven to give it its annual workout and freeing up Alex’s kitchen for the various other components of a Danvers Thanksgiving meal. 

 

A spurt of haphazard knocks at the door startled Alex from her frantic pacing. 

 

Striding over the the door, Alex raked a hand through her hair to settle the loose waves that her hair tended towards in the cold before opening it. The tightening in her chest released its hold for a moment, enough for her to kneel and receive an armful of exuberant eight year old. 

 

“Hey, kid,” Alex murmured into Jamie’s braided curls with a sigh, “Looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner?”

 

Alex felt the fervent nodding of Jamie’s head against her shoulder, releasing the girl to run into the apartment as she rose to her feet and found herself face to face with Maggie, who carried a tray of food in her hands. 

 

“You didn’t have to bring anything,” Alex stammered, taking the tray from Maggie nevertheless as she beckoned the shorter woman into the apartment.

 

Maggie raised a single eyebrow at Alex, shrugging slightly as she teased, “Well, I didn’t know if you knew how to season food, and I wanted to save my kid from eating any more tasteless cardboard than she has to in school.”

 

Alex wrapped two fingers around Maggie’s wrist as she led them towards the dining room.

 

“Well, you’ll just have to be the judge of that, huh,” Alex replied, setting Maggie’s tray on the dining table, which had already been set for six, “Might teach you a thing or two about hasty generalisations.”

 

Maggie took a step closer to Alex, almost effectively bracing Alex against the table as she spoke, “Oh, Danvers, you teach me plenty–”

 

“–Miss Alex, who’s that in the photo?” Jamie came bounding into the kitchen, nearly barreling into both adults as she carried a photo frame in one hand and launched herself into Alex’s legs. 

 

Jamie thrust the frame into Maggie’s hands as she felt her feet leave the ground, Alex sweeping her up into her arms and carrying her over to the mantle where her other photographs were kept. 

 

“That’s my little sister, Kara,” Alex explained, showing the girl the various photographs of the sisters that had been captured over the years, stopping on the earliest one of them lying next to one another on the roof of their house in Midvale, taken from Alex’s parents’ bedroom.

 

Maggie regarded the photo in her hand, tilting her head as she flicked her eyes over to her daughter in Alex’s arms and smirked, “I guess the cuteness is genetic, Danvers.”

 

“She came to live with us when she was thirteen. She’s my best friend,” Alex tapped Jamie on the nose as she continued, “You remind me of her, a little, you know that?”

 

A throat clearing behind them had both adults spinning on their heels. 

 

* * *

 

 

“You’ve got explaining to do, Alexandra,” Eliza strode into the kitchen, placing two pie tins into the oven and shutting it with aplomb before turning it onto its lowest setting and busying herself around the kitchen. 

 

Kara scampered in after her, setting the giant tray carrying an uncarved turkey in the centre of the dining table as a pale woman followed in a manner Alex could only describe as regal.

 

“Oh, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, Lucy,” Kara mocked, raising her eyebrows at her sister. 

 

“Introduce your friend, Kara,” Alex rolled her eyes and playfully shoved her sister with her shoulder. 

 

Kara wrapped an arm around the woman and bustled her forward, her voice high with excitement, “Alex, this is Lena Luthor. Lena, this is my older sister Alex.”

 

“Kara, Lena, this is Maggie Sawyer and her much cuter, fun-sized clone, Jamie,” Alex returned the introduction, “Jamie, this is my little sister Kara and her friend Lena. The blond whirlwind you saw go by is Hurricane Eliza, otherwise known as my mother.”

 

“Alexandra,” The voice that drifted out of the kitchen was nothing short of warning. Maggie almost missed the stiffening of Alex’s spine, but lay a warm hand on the small of Alex’s back as Alex straightened back up from setting Jamie on the ground. 

 

* * *

 

 

Dinner was terse from the beginning. Alex gulped ice water like she was parched and even Kara did not dare do more than chip at the ice in the air with an icepick. Jamie, on the other hand, chattered away with Alex as if there weren’t death glares being traded across the table. 

 

She had Alex explain concept after concept, from the Big Bang to how stars formed and died, and how the human body managed to pump blood to the right places even if a person were upside down. Maggie forked up (seasoned) food with her right hand as she watched the both of them talk over scientific concepts like the world would end if Alex didn’t answer another question, while her left rubbed circles on Alex’s right, resting on Maggie’s knee. 

 

In spite of the excellent distraction that Jamie provided, Alex was still tense. 

 

Eliza cleared her throat once more somewhere between how the valves in veins worked and Jamie’s next question about how the heart could keep pumping, her eyes boring holes into Alex’s casual wiping of a speck of cranberry sauce off Jamie’s cheek. 

 

“Yes, mom?” Alex angled herself towards her mother for the first time in the meal. Admirable, since they sat opposite each other. 

 

“Yes, Alexandra?”

 

Alex rolled her eyes, turning to Jamie first, “Hey, kid, why don’t you go look for another book to borrow? Anything on the lower shelves you can reach in my room would be a pretty good read for you.”

 

As Jamie scampered off at the mention of new books to devour, Maggie shook her head and chuckled, “I’ll never understand how I raised such a bookworm for a daughter.”

 

“Hmm,” Eliza gave Maggie a once-over, “You must have been rather young when you had her, for her to be at this age now.”

 

“Mom!”

 

Maggie’s hand stilled in its ministrations, but Alex slipped her hand into place to hold Maggie’s hand more securely.

 

“She’s eight. I was twenty one, in college. I still graduated with the rest of my class. I still made it through the academy,” Maggie stated matter-of-factly. 

 

“Oh yes, you’re a cop, right?” Eliza questioned, setting her cutlery down with a sharp clatter. 

 

“Detective with the NCPD, yes. Youngest in history,” Maggie allowed a measure of pride to colour her voice, and warmth bloomed in her chest when Alex smiled at her. 

 

“Well–”

 

“–Your issue is with me, Mom,” Alex cut Eliza off, “Don’t drag Maggie into this. You’ve wanted to say something since you walked through my front door – there’s no other reason for you to insist on calling me Alexandra – so you might as well say it.”

 

“Why do you always insist of making it as if I want to criticise you?” Eliza turned back to Alex, leaning forward in her chair, “All I’ve ever wanted is the best for you!”

 

Alex threw back what was left of her glass of water, which Maggie rose to refill, snapping back at her mother, “What’s best for me is you not coming after my friend and her daughter!”

 

“Friend!” Eliza sputtered, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the table, “You’re in too deep, Alexandra, into what is undoubtedly another distraction that is taking you further away from the path you’re meant to lead.”

 

“I am leading the life I want to be leading,” Alex ground out, “It just isn’t the path that you would want me on. You’d rather I still be working my way through my residency in a career I don’t love, rather than pursuing the job I find joy in doing every single day. You’d rather I be a high-flying surgeon, not a grade school teacher. I’ve deviated from the path you envisioned for me, not the path I’m “meant to” be on.”

 

Eliza shook her head, sighing as she continued, “I want what’s best for you, Alexandra. You’re settling, in more ways than one. This is all holding you back.”

 

Alex stood up sharply, and chair teetering back precariously before Maggie caught it in its descent as she set the glass down on Alex’s placemat. 

 

Maggie set a hand on Alex’s shoulder, murmuring quietly enough for only Alex to hear, “I’m just going to go get Jamie and head back. It’s getting late and she should be in bed soon anyway–”

 

Cutting Maggie off with a warm hand on her own, Alex took a fortifying breath in.

 

“Maggie and Jamie are two of the best things that have happened to me since Dad died,” Alex spat, “I know you were fine with me coming out, and I am endlessly grateful for that, but since that it’s almost as if every other part of your plan for me has become even more important to you. It was fine when it was just me you were disappointed in, but when you try to put down this courageous woman who puts her life on the line every day for our city and still makes it back to hold her daughter and saves her sick days up for when Jamie needs her, or to somehow insinuate that that brilliant, inquisitive, beautiful little girl is less than because of the circumstances of her birth, that’s where I draw the line.”

 

“Alexandra–”

 

Jamie bound back into the room with both hands wrapped around a book opened to the first page, her voice carrying through the apartment, “Alex, this one has the same writing on it as _The Island of Doctor Moreau_!”

 

Alex paled for a moment, her eyes watering and her hands stilled. 

 

_Alex. Not Miss Alex._

 

It was just a prefix, but still. 

 

Jamie thrust the book in her hands – _A Wrinkle in Time_ – and Alex thumbed through the worn edges of the book, running her fingers down the same royal blue pen and slanted scrawl that her father had left on so many of her books. 

 

“My dad gave this to me when I turned eight. It’s one in a series of five books called the Time Quintet, by Madeleine L’Engle,” Alex’s voice held none of the edge it had when she spoke to her mother, “You can borrow it, if you’d like. I think you’d like Meg Murry.”

 

Alex grabbed Jamie’s coat where it hung next to the door, helping the girl into it wordlessly. She hugged her close, only releasing her to turn to Maggie and do the same. 

 

“I’m sorry about tonight, Maggie,” Alex murmured as she glanced at her sock-clad feet.

 

Maggie kissed her cheek softly, using a finger under Alex’s chin to lift it and look into Alex’s eyes, “I’ll call you later, alright. Don’t worry about it.”

 

"I'll see you, Maggie."

 

* * *

 

 

The door shut behind Maggie and Jamie solidly, and Alex stalked back to the table and sat down heavily, the two place settings beside her empty. As they always were. 

 

“You love her, Alex,” Eliza stated, “Both of them. This is more than friendship for you.” 

 

Alex didn’t know if it was for her own benefit, or for hers. 


	4. Chapter 4

Alex rested her hand on Maggie’s forearm, stemming her gesticulating. Maggie’s eyes flickered over to Alex’s own, her panic evident in the creases around them. Her dress uniform was in a garment bag lain over her arm, Jamie’s backpack in Alex’s other hand. 

 

“I’ll watch her for the evening,” Alex stated plainly, leaving no room for argument, “Honestly, Maggie, it isn’t trouble at all. She’s already here.”

 

Maggie’s lips parted in protest, but her words were stilled by Alex’s grip tightening slightly.

 

“You deserve tonight, Maggie. You went above and beyond the line of duty and you nearly died for it. You deserve it. Let the city thank you,” Alex’s thumb rubbed small circles on Maggie’s forearm as she pleaded, “Jamie is hardly any trouble, and you shouldn’t have to miss receiving a medal of commendation simply because your babysitter managed to get the measles at seventeen.”

 

“Alex–”

 

Alex dropped the backpack shortly, lifting a finger to Maggie’s lips to quiet her, “Go get dressed, Detective Sawyer, you know where the bathroom is. You can pick her up after the ceremony.”

 

With that, Alex turned on her heel, bending to take the backpack with her as she strode out of her own bedroom and into the hall, leaving a gaping Maggie in her wake. Stopping at one of her bookcases first, she pulled out her worn copy of _A Wind in the Door_ before moving towards the living room where Jamie sat, curled at one end of the couch. 

 

Alex stopped in the doorway, leaning against its wooden frame as she regarded the young girl with her nose buried in the tail pages of the last book Alex had loaned her. 

 

_You love her, Alex._

 

Setting the backpack against the doorframe, Alex placed the book atop it as she padded silently in socked feet toward the kitchen instead, leaving Jamie to the final pages of Meg Murry’s adventures. 

 

She opened her fridge door to reveal a stocked interior, as it had been periodically for the past few months. Dinner for more than one was no longer a logistical puzzle, her hands grabbing and preparing the appropriate amounts of each ingredient for three portions. 

 

The green bell peppers that Jamie abhorred had been banished from her vegetable drawer, replaced by the sweeter yellow and red alternatives. Bacon had gradually been switched out for sliced ham of the proper sort, an indulgence Alex knew Maggie did not often allow herself. 

 

As she slid vegetables into a sizzling pan, Alex could hear the vaguely muffled voices of both Sawyers in the next room. 

 

Her breath hitched as the talking ceased, replaced by footsteps that approached her evenly. 

 

In her kitchen doorway stood a uniform-clad Maggie Sawyer, hip cocked against the wood as her badge gleamed against dark navy blue. Alex turned of the burner, schooling her breathing and heart rate as she approached Maggie and reached her minutely trembling hands out to straighten Maggie’s tie. 

 

Maggie raised her hands and placed them over Alex’s own, pulling them away from their ministrations before pulling Alex herself into her arms.

 

“Thank you, Alex,” Maggie murmured against Alex’s cheek. 

 

Alex smiled softly, brushing a stray strand of hair from Maggie’s cheek and setting it back into place, “We’ll save you a bowl. Remember to take a coat; it’s cold out.”

 

She dropped a pair of keys into Maggie’s palm, curling her fingers back over them as she called Jamie to say her goodbyes, their joined hands allowing Alex to lead Maggie to the door. As the approaching thuds announced Jamie’s impending appearance, Alex stepped back, dropping Maggie’s hand and handing her her coat. 

 

As Maggie pulled her coat over her shoulders, thin arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Maggie spun and scooped her lithe daughter up in her arms, planting soft kisses on the apples of Jamie’s cheeks and holding her close. 

 

“Be good for Alex, alright kiddo,” Maggie reminded her, setting her back on the ground, “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

 

Jamie said her goodbyes, padding back to the sofa with a offhanded remark to Alex as she walked by, “Hurry back, Alex, we gotta start the next book!” 

 

“Dinner first, sweetheart,” Alex replied instinctively, feeling the blush consume her cheeks as she realised the utterance of an endearment. 

 

Alex stammered, getting no words out before Maggie took her by the forearm and pulled her closer, her words soft as her breath on Alex’s neck, “Thank you, for loving her.”

 

Feeling her breath stick in her chest, Alex bit her lip as their eyes held each other’s gaze, each moving towards the other at an imperceptible pace. 

 

Maggie’s hand moved on its own accord, cupping Alex’s jaw and pulling the taller woman close as they finally allowed their lips to meet. Alex responded in kind, her fingers framing Maggie’s jawbone while the other hand hovered barely a millimetre away from the smoothed surface of hair pulled into Maggie’s bun. 

 

Maggie grinned into the soft kiss, chaste as it were, before pulling away gradually, her next words quiet, “Next time, maybe we can call Helena to watch Jamie for the night, and I can bring you as my plus one?”

 

“I’d like that,” Alex replied, opening the door and holding it for Maggie. 

 

* * *

 

 

The door shut behind her with a solid click, followed by the locking of a deadbolt. 

 

_Yes,_ _Jamie would be safe with Alex._

 

Maggie settled her cap on her head, making her way to the hotel in which the event was being held. 

 

Typically, she found these events insufferable enough. The prospect of all that pomp and circumstance for an act she sincerely regarded to have been well within the bounds of her duty simply rubbed her the wrong way. 

 

Tonight, though, it was unbearable. Sitting amongst her fellow servicemen and women, on stage while the medal was being placed around her neck by the commissioner, even when the microphone was in front of her, all she could think about was the two most important people in her life, curled up on the couch with a book between them, Alex’s voice rising and falling melodically as she read to Jamie, Jamie’s lilting one interjecting with questions from time to time, and Alex’s infinitely patient answers. 

 

This feeling inside her, this _warmth_ that burned balmily in the recesses of her sternum, she had never expected it. When Jamie had been born, that fire was lit. Her daughter was a part of her; the best parts of her, even if she had never been in Maggie’s life plan. But Alex, Alex had made that impossible fire grow.

 

So she schmoozed, making loaded smalltalk with the brass and her colleagues, all the while her mind preoccupied with the fact that they had final taken that step forward. 

 

It had been a long time coming, that much she knew. Maggie’s fingers kept finding the keys in her pocket, curling around the cool metal as she counted down the minutes till she could excuse herself. 

 

Eventually, she judged that enough time had elapsed for her to rise, apologising for her leaving early, feeding those at her table some excuse or another about having to be home to put Jamie to bed. 

 

As she slid the keys into each of the locks on the front door in turn, turning them as quietly as possible, Maggie toed off her shined boots in the entry way and hung up her coat. Her cap came off and rested on the kitchen counter as she shed the outer layer of her dress uniform, leaving her in the crewneck she had worn under it. 

 

The living room light had been dimmed, casting a soft glow about the two figures on the sofa. Jamie’s head was buried in Alex’s neck, the novel they were reading closed beside them as Alex threaded her fingers through Jamie’s curls mindlessly while glancing out towards the city lights outside the window. 

 

“She fell asleep two chapters from the end,” Alex murmured just loudly enough for Maggie to hear, “She’ll be hopping mad tomorrow for not lasting all the way.”

 

“I didn’t, either,” Maggie chuckled, “I couldn’t stay away for that long.”

 

Maggie stepped closer to the sofa, wary of Jamie in Alex’s arms as she bent to press a kiss to the other woman’s lips. 

 

“Why don’t you both stay the night,” Alex ventured, sitting up slightly without jostling Jamie, “It’s pretty late, and Jamie’s already fast asleep. She has spare clothes here and you could always borrow something of mine.”

 

“Alex–”

 

“And, I want you here,” Alex finished bashfully, her eyes trained on Jamie rather than Maggie. 

 

“Why not,” Maggie shrugged.

 

Alex adjusted her grip on Jamie, standing up in a single fluid motion as she spoke, “I’ll go tuck her in in the spare room. The food is in the oven if you’re hungry.”

 

Maggie watched as Alex strode away without hesitance in her steps in spite of the child in her arms. After inhaling the bowl of stir fry Alex had set aside for her, she was rinsing out the soapy dish when she felt eyes on her. Setting the bowl on the drying rack, Maggie turned around and faced Alex. 

 

She closed the distance between them in three long strides, her arms going up around Alex’s neck as she held her close. 

 

“Why did we wait?” She whispered, “It feels so right.”

 

Alex wordlessly tipped her chip up with a finger, kissing Maggie on the forehead before bringing their lips back together. 

 

“It’s all been a process,” Alex said after a moment, her hands tucking the stray strands that had escaped Maggie’s bun behind her ears, “We’ve been moving towards this all along. Now we’re both ready.”

 

Alex stepped back, entwining her fingers with Maggie’s as she guided her towards her bedroom once more. A set of nightclothes had already been lain out for her on the bed, together with a new toothbrush. 

 

“You can have the bed for the night,” Alex offered, “I’ll take the couch.”

 

As the taller woman walked away, Maggie pulled her back with a soft grip on her wrist. 

 

“We’re adults, we can share,” Maggie replied in kind, “We won’t do anything but sleep, but we’ve spent enough time apart. There’s no sense in kicking you out of your own bed when we could just sleep next to one another.”

 

With that, Maggie gathered the pile on the bed into her arms and moved to the ensuite. 

 

Alex recalled the state of Maggie’s bedroom the last time she had been over to the Sawyers’ apartment, the sheets on the right rumpled and pillow flattened while the left was immaculate. Just as well that Maggie slept on the right, as Alex herself slept on the left. 

 

She climbed into bed, leaning against the headboard when Maggie returned. Alex’s lips parted dryly as her eyes took in the sight of Maggie in her clothes. As Maggie climbed into bed, Alex opened her arms in an invitation Maggie gladly took, settling into Alex’s embrace as they both lay down to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

 

Alex lay on her side, her cheek pressed against Maggie’s curls as she stared past Maggie’s shoulder to the door. 

 

Never in her life did Alex Danvers imagine how comfortable she could be holding another person close like this. She had slept in a single bed all her life, until Kara dragged her to the furniture store and basically strong-armed her into purchasing a queen-sized bed last year, and her old single had been relegated to the spare room. After all, she had never had a need for a larger bed. 

 

Now she did. Now she couldn’t imagine getting a good night’s sleep without the warmth of another body pressed against hers, curled in her arms. 

 

Without Maggie. 

 

In the dusky quiet of the early morning, Alex’s mind ran a mile a minute. As her eyes settled on Maggie’s shoulder, bare as the shirt had shifted in the night, the white noise faded into the background. Her life had found itself going down a path she had never seen coming, but somehow she was comfortable with it for the first time in about a decade. 

 

“You make it quiet in my head,” Alex murmured softly into Maggie’s hair. Maggie smelled of sunshine and sleep, and a sharp, nearly spicy scent that hung to her hair, reminding Alex of a mixture of paprika and cinnamon. 

 

The woman in her arms turned to face her, blinking hazily as she mumbled sleepily, “Good morning.”

 

Alex had to remind herself to breathe, a hand coming up to tuck Maggie’s errant hairs behind her ear. 

 

Her voice took a couple tries to start properly, cracking as she spoke, “Good morning, love.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Their feet met in the centre of the couch, toes teasing ankles. Jamie was reading, ensconced in her room, and the apartment was silent save the hum of electrical appliances and the rustling of pages and clicking of keys. 

 

Maggie did not even have to look up to know that Alex’s eyes were trained on anything but the tablet in her lap. 

 

Signing off on her final report of the night with a flourish, Maggie shut the folder in her hands and set the stack aside. Shifting such that Alex’s feet were in her lap, Maggie pulled the fuzzy socks – her own, a gift from Jamie from a Christmas ago – off her feet and began to rub. 

 

“Something on your mind, Danvers?” Maggie tried, keeping her movements steady and her voice neutral, “You’ve been quiet all night.”

 

Alex shrugged in the corner of Maggie’s eye, her gaze snapping back to her tablet as her fingers began to type erratically, “I’m always quiet.”

 

“Not this quiet,” Maggie retorted, her voice deepening as she continued, “And I’m certain there are some situations in which you are positively deafening.”

 

Sitting up, Alex leaned forward and punched Maggie on the arm. She scoffed lightly, rolling her eyes as she returned to her tablet. 

 

Maggie continued to rub Alex’s feet, allow the silence to settle around them once more. It was thicker now, heavier, settling on and around both their shoulders like a weighted shroud. When Maggie’s hands finally stilled in their ministrations, she simply pulled the socks back onto Alex’s feet and rested her hands on Alex’s ankles, letting her gaze run over the woman next to her. 

 

“Why’d you become a cop, Mags?” Alex’s voice was small, tentative. All breathy consonants and cut-off syllables.

 

Rolling her shoulders, Maggie smirked, “To serve and protect. And to prove everyone who told me it was impossible wrong. Scrawny brown queer girls from Blue Springs, Nebraska aren't exactly poster children for the police force.”

 

“But the danger? The risk?” Alex probed, setting the tablet on the coffee table next to Maggie’s files and she leaned forward to grasp Maggie’s hands. 

 

“When I had Jamie, I had something beautiful, something good, to protect. I couldn’t just walk away,” Maggie started to trace absentminded circles on Alex’s hand as she continued, “And I’d like to think of myself as a pretty good cop. I’m careful. And I always make sure Jamie knows I love her before I answer a call.”

 

“I think you’re a great cop,” Alex mumbled, her face reddening, “And a great mom.”

 

Maggie shrugged sheepishly, biting her lip before speaking, “I thought, if kids on the street could see a cop that looked like them, acted like them, then maybe it wouldn’t seem like an impossibility for them, y’know?”

 

“A long time ago, I might have gone down the same path,” Alex curled into herself, their hands still joined between them on the couch as her voice broke the tenuous silence once more, “My father was a volunteer firefighter. His name was Jeremiah. He was a research scientist, but he wanted to protect us more directly, so he volunteered.”

 

Her voice petered out, her breathing stilted as she struggled to compose herself. Maggie held her hands, a warm solid tether. 

 

“I was fifteen when he was carried out of a house fire by his friends. The gurney went right by me. He died on the table two hours later; there was nothing the doctors could do,” Alex choked out, her grip on Maggie’s hands tightening, “I couldn’t let that happen to anyone else’s daughter.”

 

Maggie shifted them such that Alex’s head was cradled to her, her voice tentative as she spoke, “What changed?”

 

“Nothing changed, actually. Med school was miserable,” Alex divulged, “It only got worse when I went into my residency years and around every corner was someone sneering behind my back about nepotism because no matter how far I got from home there was always an attending who knew my mother.”

 

Alex paused, releasing Maggie’s hands as she interrupted herself, “Turn around, I’ll give you a back rub. You’ve been rolling your shoulders incessantly for the better part of an hour.”

 

“Anyway,” She resumed, “When I was younger I went through some pretty dark times because of my mother’s expectations and all that, and I was never the most confident. Teachers, especially my eighth grade English Lit teacher, changed that for me. When they cared and took their time to pry me out of my shell, it let me grow. Made me grow. I wanted to do that.”  
  
“Took you long enough to realise,” Maggie jibed, sighing as Alex kneaded at the knots in her shoulders.

 

“I figured that I had to start living for myself. He would be prouder of me being true to myself, rather than trying to save everyone because I couldn’t save him,” Alex finished. 

 

Maggie leaned over, pressing a soft kiss to Alex’s temple before murmuring, “He’d be proud of you. So proud.”

 

As Alex’s hands stilled over her shoulders, Maggie leaned back into the taller woman, her voice quiet as she spoke, “These few months, from you barging in to my apartment to you barging into our lives, they’ve been the most at ease I’ve been since we moved. They’ve been the most secure I’ve felt for as long as I can remember.”

 

Alex wrapped an arm around Maggie and held her close, the beating of her heart strong and steady under Maggie’s shoulder blade. Breathing in the scent she had come to associate so closely with _home_ , Alex sighed. 

 

“I never thought I’d have this,” She remarked, “Never thought I’d feel like this; that I was built to feel like this.”

 

Maggie chuckled, the sound reverberating low in her chest, “You’re not getting rid of me now, Danvers. I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it.”

 

“I don’t either,” Alex admitted, leaning her head against Maggie’s, “I want every day with the both of you. Bedhead and morning breath, screaming matches and Jamie’s whining. Heck, your whining too.”  
  
Maggie head-butted her on the shoulder, scoffing in mock offence.

 

“Don’t maim me, Sawyer, I’m trying to ask a serious question here!” Alex sputtered, twisting slightly as she reached to unclip her carabiner from her jeans. 

 

Taking a single key off the carabiner, she dropped it into Maggie’s palm, her voice hesitant as she spoke, “If you and Jamie would like it, I would love if both of you moved in. I mean, it just makes more sense, really, since my apartment is bigger and it’s closer to Jamie’s school, and it’s in a better high school district so it’d make sense in a couple years—”

 

“You thought about Jamie going to high school,” Maggie interrupted, wrapping her fingers around the key and grasping Alex’s hand with her other one, bringing it to her lips to kiss it, “You’re in it for the long haul. How could I think about saying no?”  


“It’s not just you who has to say yes, though,” Alex mumbled.

 

Maggie rolled her eyes, picking up her phone, which had started to vibrate, from the coffee table as she reassured, “Jamie loves you. Maybe even more than she loves me. Of course she’ll say yes.”

 

Disentangling herself from Alex to answer the call, Maggie sat up, her tone taking a full 180º as she spoke on the phone, all business. Alex busied herself with stacking Maggie’s haphazard pile of folders neatly, reaching into her bag for the book strap she usually kept in there and wrapping it around the papers. 

 

Satisfied with her work, she turned to see Maggie biting her lip, her cell phone back in her pocket as she shrugged on her leather jacket. 

 

“Duty calls? I’ll watch Jamie, don’t worry.”

 

At Maggie’s sheepish nod, Alex called for Jamie, shortly hearing the faint thuds of small feet on wooden floorboards. 

 

Maggie wrapped her arms around her daughter, swinging her in a circle before setting her down, apologising profusely for having to leave her that late. Refusing to say a word, Jamie stormed back to her room, slamming the door behind her. 

 

“She hates late calls,” Maggie explained, “Nothing to distract her.”

 

Alex rubbed Maggie’s arms comfortingly, assuring her softly, “She’ll be fine. Take a coat with you; it’s cold out. I’ll see you when you get back.”

 

A small grin broke on Maggie’s face, and she dropped a chaste kiss on Alex’s lips, “There’s no doubt about her answer, but we can ask her in the morning. Don’t wait up if I’m too late. You can always take my bed.”

 

“I’ll go put the monster to bed, maybe read another chapter or two with her,” Alex leaned on the doorframe as Maggie put her shoes on. 

 

Straightening up, Maggie rolled her eyes and joked as she walked away, “Nerds, the both of you.”

 

Alex shut the door behind her, bolting it before turning to walk to Jamie’s closed bedroom door. 

 

Knocking four times, Alex raised her voice slightly to be heard through the wood, “Can I come in, Jamie?”

 

A muffled _go away_ was heard through the door, while Alex stood her ground. After a few terse moments of silence and the distinct lack of footsteps fading in the distance, Jamie stomped to her door and wrenched it open. 

 

“Do you want to read, Jamie?” Alex tried, her hand on the door, “I brought _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_ with me.”

 

“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” Jamie sneered, loading her words with all the malice a nine year old could muster.

 

“Jamie–”

 

“Mama doesn’t think twice about late night calls now,” Jamie continued, undeterred, “She just leaves me with you and goes without even trying to get out of them.”

 

“Jamie–”

 

“Nothing’s changed!” Jamie exclaimed, her grip tightening on her door as her knuckles whitened, “But she leaves me alone more than she used to!”

 

“Jamie, you mother is doing her job,” Alex tried to placate her, her words slow and even, “I’m glad she trusts me enough to let me watch you, and she doesn’t go unless she absolutely has to. She doesn’t want to be away from you any more than you want her to go.”

 

Jamie rolled her eyes, doing an excellent impression of a pissed off Maggie as she turned to flop back onto her twin bed. 

 

“And Jamie,” Alex ventured, “You’re not alone.”

 

“Just leave me alone, Ms. Alex!” Jamie snapped, ripping a book of the shelf next to her bed and flinging it at the wall next to the door, “You’re not my mother.”

 

Alex swallowed, schooling her expression the best she could as she choked out her words, “Goodnight, Jamie. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”

 

With that, Alex stumbled out of the child’s room, pulling the door securely shut behind her. Her feet did not stop until her knees collided with the couch, before her knees buckled and she sat down heavily. 

 

_She wasn’t her mother._

 

Alex didn’t even know why that statement had hurt so much. It was true. She was – or at least used to be, since the new school year would soon begin – Jamie’s teacher. Nothing more. 

 

It made no difference what she was to Jamie’s mother. 

 

_This life wasn’t hers to live. She had barged into it. She didn’t belong here_.

 

Alex palmed her phone, sliding it out of her back pocket and shuffling it between both her hands as she contemplated texting Maggie. Asking her for permission to phone Helena and leave her to watch Jamie, since the girl obviously wanted nothing more than for Alex to be gone. 

 

But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t trouble Maggie more than she already had. The least she could do was sit outside and be there in case of any emergencies. That much she could do. 

 

The minutes and hours passed her by, her mind a cacophonous mess of insecurities as she sat unmoving in relative darkness. The only illumination came from a single small lamp in the corridor. Jamie had settled in soundlessly, and her bedroom door had remained shut. The sliver of light underneath had disappeared sometime around nine forty five, though. For that Alex was thankful.

 

She was vaguely aware of a key turning in the lock, the apartment door creaking open to allow the hallway light to flood in. Alex rose, gathering her belongings and striding to the doorway robotically with her messenger bag slung over one shoulder. She grasped at the coat hung on the coat stand next to the door, pulling it on mechanically as Maggie entered the apartment, shedding her own. 

 

“Don’t ask her in the morning,” Alex felt and heard the words falling from her lips, her mind numb, “She’ll say no. I’m sorry, Maggie. Goodnight.”

 

With that, Alex forced herself to walk out of the apartment, the shuddering in her shoulders suppressed the best she could. Maggie’s coat fell to the ground unceremoniously, her mouth gaping as she stared after Alex’s retreating figure. 

 

The door shut and bolted with alarming finality.

 

Picking it up, she hung it where Alex had just removed her own, before setting her badge and gun in the safe and locking it automatically. There had been no explanation, no emotional exposition, just stoic words and the leftover scent of Alex that hung in her living room.

 

And her sweater, slung over the back of the couch. 

 

Maggie picked it up, bringing it to her face and breathing in deeply. The breath caught in her throat, and she folded the sweater up, laying it on the couch, forcing herself to breathe through the tightening in her chest. 

 

She went to move to her own bedroom, determined to sleep the shock off, but her steps pulled her back. Taking the soft sweater into her arms, Maggie held it to her chest as she walked back to her own room, the brass key Alex had handed her earlier that evening burning through her pocket. 


	6. Chapter 6

The apartment was far too quiet now. 

 

The walls seemed further away, the bare couch cushions glaring and the immaculate condition of the floor a jarring revelation. Her mind had gradually become so accustomed to two more occupants, one of whom could not help but leave traces of herself everywhere she went. 

 

And no, that person was not Jamie. 

 

She had allowed herself to expect the changes to become permanent fixtures in the landscape of her life. 

 

There was a hanger for Maggie’s leather jacket on the coat rack – so it didn’t wrinkle and always sat just right on her shoulders – and a cleared off area where her boots would be haphazardly strewn, next to where Alex and Jamie set their own shoes. Maggie didn’t just have a drawer, but nearly an entire half of the closet, and the guest room had effectively been conquered by the nine year old. Maggie’s favoured bread had found its way into her pantry, and Jamie’s grape juice had begun to take up an entire small shelf in her refrigerator.

 

She had to get out of the house. As much as the walls weren’t closing in on her, Alex reckoned that this was worse. 

 

By the time the socially appropriate window of time to be consuming lunch had nearly completely passed, Alex still could not quite stomach the thought of cooking for one. Picking up her phone, she left Kara a message to meet her at Noonan’s (though it was decidedly past noon), shrugged on the only leather jacket she owned that had never touched either of the Sawyer girls, and swept out of her too empty apartment. 

 

Yeah, she was coping. 

 

She hardly knew where they stood, though to be absolutely fair that was mainly her own fault. Maggie had called – forty seven times in the past fifteen hours, to be precise – and Alex had let every call go to voicemail. She had left eighty messages. Alex had not acknowledged, much less replied, any of them. 

 

She dismounted from her motorcycle, which she could hardly recall even riding in the first place. Eventually her dragged footsteps found her outside the café, shuffling her to a secluded corner table. Eventually Kara sat before her. Eventually a mug was thrust into her hands and a plate set before her. 

 

Eventually she began to eat, rather than staring into space. 

 

Kara, for once, did not press her to speak. She sat and she watched Alex place bite after tasteless bite into her mouth. She placed her hand over Alex’s own, watchful eyes flickering between Alex’s phone and her eyes. 

 

When Alex was halfway through her plate, her phone began to buzz once more. She bit her lip, shoving the offensive device away from her as she began to devour her food with a vengeance. 

 

Glancing down at the screen, Kara’s eyes widened for a moment as ‘Unknown Number’ flashed across the screen. Well, flashed as brightly as something could on Alex’s dim excuse for a phone screen anyhow. 

 

She nudged the phone back towards Alex, her words tumbling out of her mouth, “Answer it, it might be important. It isn’t her.”

 

Painfully, Alex swallowed the too-big mouthful of food she had shovelled into her mouth, accepting the call and putting her cellphone to her ear. 

 

“Danvers,” her tone belied none of the heartbreak that she had shouldered for the past fifteen hours, all of it falling away to reveal a core of utterly professional crispness. 

 

There were gasps over the line, small and choking, before a tinny broken voice dared sound, “I’m scared, Alex.”

 

Suddenly breathless and suffocating, Alex pushed her chair away from the table to grant herself some breathing room as she tried to keep her voice level, “Jamie?”

 

Alex stood so quickly her chair nearly punched a hole in the ground as it fell. Her jacket was back on her shoulders in one swift movement as she placed a small wad of bills on the table and strode as quickly as she could to where her Ducati was parked, phone still held tightly to her ear in a vice grip. 

 

“Where are you, Jamie?” Alex asked, “Is your mama hurt?”

 

“Hospital,” Jamie rasped, her sobs preventing any further details from being divulged. 

 

Alex leaned heavily against her motorcycle, her forehead cradled in the crook of her hand as she probed tentatively, “Are you alone, Jamie?”

 

A pause.

 

“I can’t see you nod or shake your head, kiddo,” Alex breathily chuckled, “Can you use your words?”

 

“No,” Jamie choked out, “I’m so scared, Mommy.”

 

Alex stiffened as she forced the next words out of her mouth, “Do you want me to come, Jamie?”

 

“Yes,” Jamie breathed into the phone, before the line went dead with a long dial tone with unsettling finality. 

 

Her phone and heart fell limply as she pulled on her helmet, willing her mind to come to a standstill. Swinging her leg over the side of her Ducati, Alex clenched her fists against her thighs before turning to a concerned Kara who stood next to her bike, arms folded. 

 

“Can you drive me to the hospital, Kara?” Alex murmured, “I don’t think I can trust myself–”

 

“I haven’t ridden a motorcycle in a while, Alex,” Kara protested, even as she was already pulling the extra helmet Alex held out to her onto her head, “Hold on.”

 

Alex inched back as Kara got onto the bike, her hands settling somewhat stiffly onto the handlebars before they set off at a far slower pace than Alex’s heart would have allowed her to take. 

 

Another downside to being a passenger was that Alex’s mind was given free reign to run to every possible worst case scenario she could come up with. Her hands nearly slipped from Kara’s waist several times in the course of the ride, short as it were. Kara’s sharp intake breath every single time that happened never failed to rip her from her rapidly spiralling thoughts to tighten her grip, but only momentarily. 

 

By the time they pulled into the drop off point of National City Medical, Alex hardly waited for Kara to pull the Ducati to a complete stop before leaping off the back and hurrying into the hallways of the hospital she had all the more reason to abhor now. 

 

The sight of her mother’s drawn face, pale against the stark white of her lab coat and more so against the darkened red-brown stains on her scrubs, nearly forced Alex’s steps to stop in their tracks, turn tail and run. 

 

But a few steps behind Eliza, a small, towheaded bundle crouched on the ground. A few steps behind Eliza, Alex found herself acutely ripped between a sight too close to the one that she remembered from her own childhood and the sight of her baby girl curled into herself sobbing her eyes out. 

 

Alex hurtled forward, her footsteps petering to a stuttered stop in front of Jamie as she crouched down, gathering the weeping girl into her arms. She rubbed small circles on her back, running the other hand through her tangled hair and murmuring what she hoped were comforting words against Jamie’s chilled temple. 

 

The girl wore paint splattered play clothes under her fall coat, haphazardly tied at the waist and barely buttoned. 

 

“Breathe, baby girl, breathe,” Alex coached, moving her hand from Jamie’s hair to lay on her shuddering chest, “Follow my breathing. In and out. One breath at a time. You’re alright, Jamie. You’re alright.”

 

Jamie’s shuddering sobbed quieted into hiccups, then the rolling of silent tears down her reddened cheeks. Alex placed a kiss on the top of her head before picking the girl up as one would a toddler, Jamie instinctively wrapping her legs around Alex’s middle. 

 

“I can’t tell you anything, Alex,” Eliza started apologetically, coming up behind the two of them, “Legally, you’re not family.”

 

“That’s bull and you know it, Mom,” Alex ground out as civilly as she could, reluctant to scare Jamie any more than she had already been, “I need to know. I _love_ her, Mom.”

 

Eliza shook her head, running a hand through her hair as she sighed, “I know, Alexandra, but her parents were adamant.”

 

Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, Alex held back a string of curses she would have liked nothing more than to release. Her eyes were already filling with tears as she tipped her head back, willing gravity to get rid of them before they trailed down her cheeks in front of Jamie. 

 

“Can you at least tell me if she’s stable?” Alex implored, tightening her hold on Jamie as she heard the sharp clipping of high heeled shoes on the linoleum floor coming up behind her, “Please, Mom.”

 

“It’s pretty severe, Alex,” Eliza relented, “She’s not quite out of the woods yet.”

 

Alex bit back a sob, her shoulders shaking just once before she managed to suppress it. Her hold on Jamie only loosened – barely – as the sound of footsteps went right by her and into the next doorway.

 

“Gunshot?” Alex choked.

 

Eliza nodded hesitantly, “Three.”

 

_Fuck_. 

 

_She had been so bloody stubborn._

 

“Can we go see Mama?” Jamie mumbled into Alex’s neck, her tears still hot and wet against Alex’s skin. 

 

“She’s going to look pretty bad, Jamie, but don’t be afraid, alright?” Eliza spoke as she placed a soft hand on Jamie’s cheek, before keeping her eyes trained on the girl as she continued, “131, down the hall and take a left.”

 

Alex thanked her mother quietly, striding as composedly as possible with Jamie in her arms down the hall to Room 131. She stopped short of the door, leaning against the wall next to her as she steeled herself. 

 

_I think they meant it, when they said you can’t buy love._

 

Her eyes were screwed shut and her head pressed into the wall when a sharp voice cut through the little peace she had managed to gather about her. 

 

“Kindly put my granddaughter down.”

 

Alex’s eyes snapped open, taking in the sight of an imposing woman standing before her, arms folded and head tilted as her eyes bore into Alex’s own. 

 

“Immediately, please.”

 

Jamie lifted her head at the voice, her own cutting through tentatively, “This is Alex, Abuela.”

 

Gently setting the girl on the ground, Alex shifted to shield Jamie from the direct view into Maggie’s hospital room, raising her gaze to meet the Sawyer matron’s own. 

 

“Alex Danvers, Mrs. Sawyer,” Alex stretched out her hand, “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

 

Never raising her own hand to meet Alex’s, Mrs. Sawyer stated plainly, “I wish we were not meeting at all. You may go in, Jamie.”

 

Alex started to approach the door with Jamie, only to have it sharply shut in her face the moment Jamie passed through it. 

 

Leaning her head against the shut door, Alex peered into the room through the glass paneling and instantly felt sick to her stomach. If she thought her mother had been pale upon seeing her, the only word she could find to describe Maggie was pallid. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her features lay slack and flat. Her hair was untidily gathered around her head. 

 

And the bandages. 

 

Alex remembered enough from her days as a surgeon to know what unsteady vitals looked like. She remembered enough from her days as a surgeon to know how fragile Maggie truly was, especially since this was not her first major operation. 

 

The bandages around her chest just made Alex’s heart tempted to stop. 

 

_A new lease you are, my love, on life. All my life._

 

She wanted nothing more than to be in the room, holding Maggie’s hand and speaking to her. Willing her to wake up. Holding Jamie as she cried. Apologising for being stubborn. 

 

_I’ve longed to discover something as true as this is._

 

To be there when she woke. 

 

If nothing at all, she wanted a chance to say goodbye. 

 

_When you’re worn out and tired, when your heart has expired, oh lover, I’ll cover you._

 

Alex allowed herself to slink onto the ground, her knees buckling as she buried her face in her hands, wishing more than anything that she had chosen to wear the jacket Maggie had _accidentally_ left in her apartment the last time they had come over. 

 

Anything that smelled like her and not the sterile hospital brand of Death. 

 

The tears came in a torrent, wetting and reddening her cheeks as she swept them away furiously. Her sobs remained choked and silenced, her shudders suppressed as she kept an ear out for the child in the hospital room. 

 

She would lose both of them, she knew. If she lost Maggie, she would lose them both. 

 

She wasn’t quite sure she would survive that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will attempt to get the last chapter up by tomorrow before I go off the map for three weeks I will try


	7. Chapter 7

It continues for days. Two weeks, almost three. 

 

Unfailingly, Alex finds herself hunched over on the ground outside Maggie’s room every single day the moment classes let out. Her papers lay in two neat stacks before her, one with papers bare save for the scrawling of third graders, and the other thoroughly marked with a red ink pen. 

 

Each paper is graded in time to the now-rhythmic beeping of Maggie’s heart monitor. 

 

The door to Maggie’s room remains shut, and the Sawyers remain steadfast in their refusal to let Alex in. Jamie sits by her, sometimes, when her grandparents forget to notice where she is. 

 

Alex sits, Jamie’s head in her lap. Her hands thread through Jamie’s curls the same way they would through Maggie’s own. Her voice turns lowly around lines of songs she has heard Maggie sing to Jamie, songs she herself has sung to Jamie. Her heart clenches each time an orderly or doctor hurries into Maggie’s room, its beating fitful and strained until the lull of nothingness has been restored. 

 

Every day, Alex watches as the colour thankfully returns to Maggie’s cheeks, her skin no longer too pale to hold life. She watches as each rise and fall of Maggie’s chest grows in strength and steadiness. She watches as the bandages shrink and fall away, the wounds scab and patch themselves over. 

 

She watches as Maggie heals, and she thanks whatever higher being she stopped believing in decades ago. 

 

The first week had been hell. 

 

Complications abound, she heard nought but fragments of harried shouts between doctors, the myriad of terms she still recognised from her own time in scrubs burning holes into her consciousness. Sobs wracked Jamie’s small frame almost every day, but the little girl had been kept just out of Alex’s grasp, while her cries for Maggie – and Alex herself – hurtled towards Alex’s ears faster and more sharply than javelins. 

 

Maggie had coded more than once, her heart giving out and sending the machines around her into a frenzy. Alex’s heart had remained in her throat for the better part of the first week. 

 

And so she prayed. She begged and rationalised, offered herself up instead. She bargained and she cursed and she tried to make sense of it all. 

 

She had paced the length of the hospital corridor a thousand times until her mother sat her down and told her she was scaring Jamie. 

 

And so, red pen in hand, Alex began to write letters. Each letter started the same way – a simple, straightforward “Dear Maggie,” – and ended the same – “All my love,”. The middles were filled with equal parts of tear streaks and words. 

 

_“I’m trying to ignore how the colour of this pen is the exact colour I never want to see again. I’m trying to ignore how I can hardly keep my distance from you. I’m trying not to blame myself for letting you leave that night. I’m trying, Maggie. I’m trying.”_

 

_“I found a home. It has two pairs of brown eyes deeper than the seas and two pairs of small hands warmer than a fireplace. I can’t lose that home, Maggie.”_

 

_“We took forever for granted, love.”_

 

The nurses, some of whom have known Alex for the better part of her entire life, placed comforting hands on her shoulder as they passed. They tried to reassure Alex, going about their duties as calmly as they can when they passed her on their ways in and out of Maggie’s room. 

 

Legally, Alex knew, no one could tell her anything. Not while the Sawyers wanted them not to. 

 

After all, she was nothing to Maggie in the eyes of the law. 

 

The second week was calmer. Maggie stopped coding, and all traffic in and out of her room slowed to a brisk stride rather than a sprint. 

 

Jamie sat by Alex more in the second week, her sobs wetting Alex’s neck or leg through the thin layers of her clothing rather than reaching Alex through a closed door. Alex thought about _them_ more in that second week, her letters beginning to take after her thoughts. 

 

_“I always thought I’d have to resign myself to an unhappy marriage. To give my days away so that I could have a chance at a family. You’ve changed that for me, love.”_

 

_“I don’t want a future without you in it, Maggie. If I lose you, I lose Jamie too – your parents will make sure of that – and I have no legal leverage or claim, and it’s a losing case no matter how good a lawyer Lucy may be.”_

 

_“Nothing matters except that you come back, Maggie. I don’t need anything else as a guarantee but the fact that you live to take another step and say another word.”_

 

Three days into the third week, a gasping pulls Alex’s attention sharply towards the occupants of Maggie’s room. She holds Jamie to her, guiding the girl’s head towards her neck and hiding her eyes from the sight of her mother thrashing against the hospital bed, fighting the ventilation tube thrust down her throat. 

 

She holds Jamie until the tube is removed and replaced with a cannula. She holds Jamie until Maggie’s parents have been dealt with by their daughter, and Alex beckoned back into the room while they sneer under their breaths. She holds Jamie until she can place the girl back into her mother’s arms. 

 

Jamie holds tightly as she dares to Maggie’s neck, her body angled awkwardly as she attempts to keep herself from hurting Maggie. 

 

“ _Mija_ , I’m fine. You won’t hurt me,” Maggie rasps, her voice still hoarse from the tube. 

 

Jamie’s only response is to wind her arms tighter around Maggie’s neck, content with her mother’s arms around her for the first time in weeks. 

 

“Alex,” Maggie murmurs, one hand moving to seek purchase on Alex’s own, “You stayed. Even when my parents were being bigoted and terrible, you stayed.”

 

Alex shrugs, rolling her eyes, “And what else would you have had me do, Sawyer?”

 

“I know this is bad timing, and bad setting,” Maggie begins, “But what happened just confirmed what I’ve already known for the longest time. I don’t want to imagine my life – our lives – without you in it. I don’t want my parents to be able to keep you on the other side of the door if something like this ever happens again. In my line of work, bad things happen all the time, but you and Jamie are an island of good amongst all the evil in the world. Marry me, Alexandra Danvers.”

 

Alex sets the stack of letters she has amassed over the past few weeks on the foot of Maggie's bed, leaning over to place a soft kiss on Jamie's upturned forehead before she replies, her voice catching slightly. 

 

“Of course.”


End file.
